18 And whenever the Lord gave them judges, then the Lord was with the judge, and was their saviour from the hands of their haters all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved by their cries of grief because of those who were cruel to them.
For the Lord will be judge of his people, he will have pity for his servants; when he sees that their power is gone, there is no one, shut up or free.
While you are living, all will give way before you: as I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not take away my help from you or give you up.
And at the sound of their weeping the agreement which God had made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob came to his mind.
But when their cry came to his ears, he had pity on their trouble: And kept in mind his agreement with them, and in his great mercy gave them forgiveness.
So they put away the strange gods from among them, and became the Lord's servants; and his soul was angry because of the sorrows of Israel.
Then Jehoahaz made prayer to the Lord, and the Lord gave ear to him, for he saw how cruelly Israel was crushed by the king of Aram.
And Israel was crushed under the power of Hazael, king of Aram, all the days of Jehoahaz. But the Lord was kind to them and had pity on them, caring for them, because of his agreement with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; he would not put them to destruction or send them away from before his face till now.
Because of the crushing of the poor and the weeping of those in need, now will I come to his help, says the Lord; I will give him the salvation which he is desiring.
Come back, O Lord; how long? let your purpose for your servants be changed.
Whenever I say anything about uprooting a nation or a kingdom, and smashing it and sending destruction on it; If, in that very minute, that nation of which I was talking is turned away from its evil, my purpose of doing evil to them will be changed. And whenever I say anything about building up a nation or a kingdom, and planting it; If, in that very minute, it does evil in my eyes, going against my orders, then my good purpose, which I said I would do for them, will be changed.
How may I give you up, O Ephraim? how may I be your saviour, O Israel? how may I make you like Admah? how may I do to you as I did to Zeboim? My heart is turned in me, it is soft with pity.
And God saw what they did, how they were turned from their evil way; and God's purpose was changed as to the evil which he said he would do to them, and he did it not.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Judges 2
Commentary on Judges 2 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 2
In this chapter we have,
Jdg 2:1-5
It was the privilege of Israel that they had not only a law in general sent them from heaven, once for all, to direct them into and keep them in the way of happiness, but that they had particular messages sent them from heaven, as there was occasion, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, when at any time they turned aside out of that way. Besides the written word which they had before them to read, they often heard a word behind them, saying, This is the way, Isa. 30:21. Here begins that way of God's dealing with them. When they would not hear Moses, let it be tried whether they will hear the prophets. In these verses we have a very awakening sermon that was preached to them when they began to cool in their religion.
Jdg 2:6-23
The beginning of this paragraph is only a repetition of what account we had before of the people's good character during the government of Joshua, and of his death and burial (Jos. 24:29, 30), which comes in here again only to make way for the following account, which this chapter gives, of their degeneracy and apostasy. The angel had foretold that the Canaanites and their idols would be a snare to Israel; now the historian undertakes to show that they were so, and, that this may appear the more clear, he looks back a little, and takes notice,
And so he comes to give us a general idea of the series of things in Israel during the time of the judges, the same repeated in the same order.